joe & jim loaned me a couple of their YOT CBs about a year ago and while flipping through one discovered a lovely little promotional number tucked inside titled timely meat recipes for meal appeal.

published in 1945

the gist of the foreword (after it dedicates this book to the american homemaker) is every meal revolves around meat and/or lard because, lets get real, meat is the “main stay” and contains more essential nutrients than any other food. (quotes around “main stay” not added by me). here’s one of their examples:

And when you ask Mrs. Neighbor across the back fence what she is having for Sunday dinner, is she going to say that she has decided on a tossed green salad? Well, hardly! She’s more likely to come up with an idea such as roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, and the salad will be fit into the menu later.

totally. I mean, tossed green salad for sunday dinner? the horror!

so I decided on something from the luncheon section. picked out because split peas are cheap and I had some hot dogs in the freezer.

split pea soup with frankfurters after the jump.

SPLIT PEA SOUP WITH FRANKFURTERS

2 cups dried peas
3 quarts water
Ham seasoning piece
1 medium sized stalk celery
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter or fortified margarine
4 tablespoons flour
1 quart milk
Salt and pepper
Frankfurters

Look over, wash and soak peas over-night. Cook peas in soaking water, adding seasoning meat and celery. Simmer for several hours until tender. Gently brown the onions in the fat and add the flour. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly. Add to rest of soup. Season to taste. The soup should be quite thick. Water, soup stock, milk or cream may be added to thin, if desired. Serve in a large tureen with thin slices of frankfurters floating on top. Serves 8.

okey dokey… lets do this. decided to 1) cut the recipe in half, 2) skip the celery (which btw are we supposed to chop it up or leave it in whole like some sort of flavoring agent?) and 3) brown the frankfurter slices (for aesthetic purposes).

last week while at rainbow grocery I picked up just over a cup of split peas for a cool 62 cents:

hellz to the yeah!

and yesterday popped into mollie stones for the “ham flavoring agent”. one of my new year’s resolutions is to stop shopping there for anything beyond the very basics because as everyone knows, I f*cking hate that store but it’s so stupidly convenient I can’t give it up entirely. I decided to just “go and see” what they had in the vacuum sealed portion of the meat department. if I can find something suitable I’ll call it a day otherwise pop in to a legit butcher the next morning for some hook up and consultation.

while I was there what do I see? veal tongues. vacuum sealed veal tongues. oh my effing gee even mollie knows I need to get with the program and start offalling it up! and then lazy ol’ me was delighted to find this! ham, looks flavorful, contains a bone, a small enough portion. oh… sometimes it’s so great to be reminded mollie stones doesn’t blow so much after all. it was like our souls were connected.

ye olde tymey experiment costing a grand total of $3.25! thrifty!

part of the glory of working from home is having the freedom to do long simmers during the day so this morning went to set the meat and soaked peas to simmer and that’s when I saw it.

oh f*cking holy hell I hate that place. sure, we’re talking a few days with smoked meat so I’m not worried but it’s the principle. and – why in gods name aren’t bar codes on your prepackaged items tied to expiration dates? remove human error from the equation and get with the times! you want to know what I’m doing tomorrow morning? I’m treating myself to a starbucks so I can pop in and check the date on those gnarly veal tongues. working from home glory I’m tellin’ ya.

anyway, then this happened:

cooking everything in the soaking water didn’t sound right but I did it anyway and scraped out loads of foamy annoyance over the first hour:

after about 2 1/2 hours it looked like this:

I’ve only made split pea soup a handful of times and it’s always been of the vegan variety (cut to the national live stock and meat board shuddering at the lack of nutrients) so I went with ye olde tymey instincts and fished out the expired shank to pick off the meat:

and after it sat for a while, went to town:

while I worked on this I noticed as the soup started to cool loads of fat was rising to the surface. this is fine and all, I suppose, but I found it overall unappealing. since I had the time I decided to refrigerate the soup, scrape some of the excess fat from the top, reheat the soup and continue. (it was at this point while refrigerating I called my parents to chat and when they asked what I was doing replied “going rogue with a ye olde tymey recipe.”) well… as it turns out… it wasn’t really fat it was this gelatinous sludge. is this from the bones? it’s reminding me of the time I made a lamb shank and was advised by a legitimate butcher that the un-meaty portion of the bone was worth adding just to thicken the gravy. does bryan’s have any internships?

here’s the swamp watery sludge:

and here’s me brownin’ up some dawgs:

while those were frying I took another look at the suggested menu accompanying the recipe. I love how this is so clearly defined as a “one-dish meal” yet don’t forget the spinach & radish salad and caramel dumplings!

anywho, I took some pictures of the whole mise en place which didn’t turn out (forgot to put butter in the shot) and then snapped this while I snacked on fried hot dogs:

quick multitasking while whisking action shot of the butter/onion/flour:

dumped in the milky gravy (which wasn’t thick enough, I have got to work on that):

stirred it up:

and served it up:

the result? well, it was okay. mostly I was just so over it by the time it was finished I couldn’t enjoy it for what it was (creamy expired ham goodness).  if I was straight transported back in time and mrs. housewife called ‘cross the fence to tell me she was having split pea soup with frankfurters would I roll for lunch? totally.

(published on muni)

Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s sharp script anchors this story about New York City theater life, with Bette Davis playing an aging Broadway diva who employs a starstruck fan (Anne Baxter) as her assistant, only to learn the woman is a conniving upstart. The now-classic All About Eve won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Mankiewicz), Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders). –Netflix

uhh… this movie is seriously so, so awesome. I was dreading watching it because I had in my head I’d seen it before and was bored beyond belief. if that’s the case I must have been in the single digits because I was simply mesmerized. yeah its all old-n-black-n-white but the characters are timeless, the dialogue is glory and the story does not disappoint.

things worth mentioning:

1) why is this movie on the sf flicks list? because all of the interior theatre scenes were filmed in the curran theatre. totes legit!

2) marilyn monroe has a small part and as I assumed after watching my week with marilyn… she’s a crappy actress. I still feel sorry for her as she clearly suffered from mental illness but lets get real: she got everywhere by being a hot piece of ass. period. and I’m not so much annoyed that sir elton wrote a song about her but that he got lazy when he wrote the song about diana. something tells me miss monroe wasn’t out there all puckered and coiffed while cradling AIDS babies… but wikipedia is currently dark so if you’ve got info otherwise lemme know.

3) obvi I went on a googling rampage finding out what happened to each of the main players and stumbled upon some juicy scoop about celeste holm who played bette’s bestie. super old lady, marries someone half her age, sons are angry, inheritance is blown on legal fees… just read it.

4) and lastly, I’ve got a new favorite movie quote. slick theatre critic, addison dewitt, is explaining to eve how he scored some info and says, “I had lunch with Karen not three hours ago. As always with women who try to find out things, she told more than she learned.” yep. pretty much the story of my life.

FIVE STARS

published 1930 by angelus-campfire co., chicago

desserts scare me. there, I said it. I never make them for three reasons: 1) I prefer savory to sweet always, 2) desserts are unbelievably easy to source in the purchased form and 3) baking is like watching paint dry. so I rarely go down this road and when I do find myself out of my element. I figured it would be a no-brainer to make one of chef roemer’s recipes of the palace hotel fame but that turned out to be too stressful to fathom. check this out:

EGGS IN A NEST: Mix 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup butter, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar and the grated rind of 1/2 lemon. Chill, then roll as pie paste and bake a shell of this sugar dough on a pie tin. Fill with French Cream and cover with Campfire Marshmallows. Garnish with apricot jam.

that’s the extent of the recipe. sure, an experienced baker could sort this out in a heartbeat but I’m left with “chill how long?” “bake at what temperature?” “bake on a pie tin or in a pie tin? and for how long?” “wtf is french cream?” “why is chef roemer all hoity-toity?!?”

so I chose something that came with a ton of explanation and didn’t involve an oven. not a famous chef’s recipe but definitely doable. campfire marlows after the jump.

as the campfire folks explain:

Marlows are first cousins to the mousses, for they both use gelatine as their stiffening “agent.” Only, in the case of marlows, gelatine is introduced by means of marshmallows, while in mousses it is added in dissolved granulated form.

I am so down with this explanation. they go on to offer important tips about dissolving the marshmallows thoroughly, chilling the foundation, when to introduce food coloring, methods for freezing, etc. I am so confident right now it ain’t no joke. here we go.

CHOCOLATE MARLOW

20 Campfire Marshmallows
1 cup milk
1 square chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whipping cream
Few grains salt

Melt 15 Campfire Marshmallows and chocolate in milk over hot water. Chill until slightly thickened; add vanilla, salt and whipped cream. Cut 5 Campfire Marshmallows in small pieces and fold into the mixture. Pour into freezing compartment of refrigerator and freeze from 6 to 8 hours.

well firstly, I’m well aware that a square of chocolate means a square of baking chocolate (at least I think so?) but I’m in no mood to buy a bar of the stuff since it will inevitably go to waste (see above re: me never baking) so I decide to use a square of dagoba chocolate I scored yesterday at the fancy food show. I prefer the taste of vanilla anyway. secondly, I’m loving this calls for salt. it turns out what ina’s been preaching for years is so yesterday’s news! thirdly, “freezing compartment?”

I started things off by prepping the ingredients. I’m assuming “cutting marshmallows into small pieces” is what eventually spawned miniature marshmallows because that process was a sticky pain in the you-know-what.

ingredients: SUGAR!

after resisting every temptation within me to microwave the marshmallow/chocolate/milk mixture I climbed up on my step stool to pull down my tin bowls only to discover the one that was the oh so perfect size for a double boil situation was missing. I resort to a pyrex but panic… will this work? then I had a harsh talking to with myself to stop pussy-footing around.

steamy!

after a good 10 minutes I’m feeling tempted to call it a day and treat myself to a hot chocolate.

this cold snap is BS: drink me.

when it was all thoroughly disolved it looked like this:

ready for the refrigerator

I gave the bowl a little shake now and then as it chilled and sure enough you could see the gelatin setting in. this progress didn’t stop me from worrying about timing it with the whipped cream however. I decided to stop being a ye new tymey lazy person and whip by hand so consulted the i-net for some tips. my favorite one was “switch hands to lessen fatigue.” hmm, noted.

I knew to chill the bowl but also read to chill the cream. I underestimated the power of my freezing compartment and thank goodness pulled it out when I did.*

dessert induced panic attack!

making whipped cream by hand is totally annoying, especially when your words with friends elbow starts acting up. I was pretty much freaking out I’d never conquer the soft peak, let alone the highest one. just kidding, I never want to climb a mountain.

victory!

so I folded it all together with the greatest care and ended up with this:

yeah boyeee

folded in the marshmallows, set it to freeze and crossed my fingers.

the marlow of my dreams

hours later… drumroll please…!!

so vintage!

was it good? of course it was good. it’s whipping cream and sugar for god’s sake. its downfall was being annoyingly close to ice cream without being ice cream. full fat but too airy and when you bit down it sort of crunched like walking on snow. I think it was, dare I say, too frozen. I guess my highfalutin freezer got the better of me.

——————–

*twss

1) is stubb’s bbq undergoing economic hardship? their booth was depressingly subpar this year.

2) is being a total pouty faced b*tch a requirement to work at the republic of tea? I’m not a tea drinker but if I ever become one will not be subscribing to their corporate grody-ness.

3) is slapping the word “brooklyn” on anything the new trend? suzy seems to think so. my favorite pickles at the show were by far the ones by the brooklyn brine co.

4) is three twins ice cream the best thing ever? I’m going to say yes.

there were many, many other yummy things we tasted. I loved the gabbi patrick booth and the olive oil at arianna trading company was out of this world.

it wouldn’t be a fancy foods show without a celebrity chef sighting and I had zero shame in snapping a pic. I took only a few others which are posted on flickr. good times, yo!

Deloris Van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) is again asked to don the nun’s habit to help a run-down Catholic school, presided over by Mother Superior (Maggie Smith). And if trying to reach out to a class full of uninterested students wasn’t bad enough, the sisters discover that the school is due to be closed by the unscrupulous local authority chief Mr. Crisp (James Coburn). –IMDB

I am seriously, not joking, 100% convinced this movie didn’t have a script. nope, the entire thing was ad-libbed.

I knew I was in for trouble when I saw jennifer love hewitt had a role and she was calling herself jennifer “love” hewitt. horrible use of quotations is one of my biggest pet peeves. is your middle name love or not??

of course I immediately report to IMDB and was very pleased to discover they’re so on top of it.

in a nutshell: script or no script this movie blows.

TWO STARS

Songbird Deloris Van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) needs protection after inadvertently seeing her gangster boyfriend, Vince (Harvey Keitel), commit murder. She’s rechristened Sister Mary Clarence and stashed in a convent, where her heretical behavior shakes up the order — especially starchy Mother Superior (Maggie Smith). Relegated to the choir, Deloris peppers their repertoire with doo-wop and soon draws the media’s attention … and Vince’s. –Netflix

holy gosh this movie is horrible. whoopi gets put into the poor man’s version of witness protection (which I bought since cops from reno were running the show) after she decides to testify against her crime boss boyfriend. she ends up at a convent where she transforms the choir into spiced up glory. mostly she takes regular songs and adds jesus stuff to them by crossing out words like “baby” and “darlin’” and replacing them with “jesus”. they were well on their way to a myrrh album not to mention a private performance with the pope when the mob catches up with her. you sit there fingers crossed she’s gonna get what’s coming when you remember there’s a sister act 2.

lots of scenes around 29th and church but not quite enough for an asterisk.

TWO STARS

"dinner in a dish" published 1965

while perusing those pages I felt all nostalgic for the ye olde days so found something to kick off a revival. one of my goals in the new year (happy new year btw) is to take more photos so this is a two birds kinda thing. bonus!

“cheeseburgers in vegetable sauce” after the jump.

CHEESEBURGERS IN VEGETABLE SAUCE

8 thin hamburger patties
Salt and pepper
4 slices process American cheese
1 can (10 1/2 oz.) vegetable soup
1 can (12 oz.) whole kernel corn with peppers, drained
2 tbsp. chili sauce

In large heavy skillet, brown patties well on both sides; season lightly with salt and pepper. Drain off excess fat. Place cheese slices on four of the meat patties; top with remaining patties, making 4 hamburger-cheese stacks. Combine soup, corn, and chili sauce. Pour over and around meat. Cover and simmer 10 min., stirring occasionally. 4 servings.

this recipe is both easy and incredibly weird. my first thought is “that cheese is not going to stay between those patties” and my second thought is “why not just have a cheeseburger and a side of soup?”

nevertheless I decide to cut the burger/cheese down to one serving and leave the rest as is (I have an inkling the submersion level is important and, also, I’m lazy).

ingredients for glory

while shopping I found myself overwhelmed by the vegetable soup options. “garden vegetable!” “vegetable italiano!” “chunky vegetable!” “french country vegetable!” “summer vegetable!” so I went with the only one that was called straight up vegetable. problem was, it had alphabet letters. I quickly got over it.

JOKES ON ME! MADE WITH BEEF STOCK!

I first set out to form the hamburger patties which was annoyingly time consuming because as any grill master knows: making thin patties is not an easy task. I made two normal ones that I froze for regular-style cheeseburgers at a later date and then two smaller ones as thin and round as possible.

going rogue! (salt and peppering before they cook, not after)

while they were browning up I assembled the sauce. I ended up using half the can of soup and half a can of water after I realized my veggie/beef can was condensed. tragedy averted!

as you can see, "sauce" is loosely defined

then I began the cheese sandwiching process.

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

after 10 minutes simmering this is what it looked like:

lets dish up!

the result? it was actually kind of good. I mean, not good good but I ate it. the cheese melted out but not completely. and the chili sauce surprisingly made the dish. as did the alphabet letters.

R-A-d

I’m sure its mostly due to the fact I’ve watched a boatload of seriously crappy movies lately… but I rather enjoyed this one. j lo marries this dude she meets in a diner and j lo and behold… he’s a philandering wife beater upper. does she go to the authorities? no! she goes on the lam. these are the kinds of things that bother me greatly so how delighted was I when she finally seeks advice from a lawyer he informs her “you’re an idiot, you should have gone to the police, I can’t help you, tough luck.” I was like omg this movie’s awesome!

I thought for sure noah wyle was going to turn out to be a good guy (spoiler alert!) and I liked fred ward as her estranged father. ultimately it’s all one big lead up to watch her kick the sh*t out of a total douche. I mean, hey, why not?

there are a fair amount of scenes around the city but not quite enough to warrant an asterisk.

THREE STARS